Turkish minister: Europe is humiliating us

Turkey’s relationship with the European Union is souring due to the European reaction to the country’s failed coup and tensions over migration, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told German newspaper Bild.

“What we are now experiencing from parts of the EU are threats, insults and a total blockade,” the Turkish minister said in an interview published Monday. “I wonder: What have we done? Why is there this Turkey hostility?”

Çavuşoğlu reiterated that if the EU doesn’t grant visa-free travel to Turks by October, the agreement under which his country takes back irregular migrants reaching Greece should be put aside.

“I don’t want to talk about the worst case scenario, talks with the EU are continuing, but it’s clear that we either apply all treaties at the same time or we put them all aside,” Çavuşoğlu said.

Asked about comments made by senior politicians that Turkey will consider reintroducing the death penalty, Çavuşoğlu defended the country’s position.

“Europe has reacted as if we have introduced the death penalty,” he said, adding that parliament had a duty to respond to demands from Turkish people to consider the matter. “It was the bloodiest coup attempt in the history of Turkey. People were run over by tanks, shot from jets, the parliament was bombarded. We cannot ignore this call [to consider the death penalty].”

Çavuşoğlu also took aim at criticism from Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern about Turkey’s heavy-handed reaction to the failed coup in July after Kern said the EU should end accession talks with Turkey.

“There should have been much clearer statements against the coup … Perhaps the Austrian government should rather look after their radical citizens,” Çavuşoğlu said.

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CSK

Of course it is normal for Turkey to respond to a failed coup attempt with a very heavy-handed crackdown; of course it would consider a return of the death penalty; of course Turkey sees nothing wrong with Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
That is precisely why Europeans are questioning Turkey’s suitability for joining the EU and its terse reaction to events!

Posted on 8/15/16 | 12:06 PM CET

4rthreich

no one surprised about the reaction of austira- a socioathic nation who has given the world great presents in the forms of beethoven and hitler..